Oakland BART Officer Who Shot Pinned, Unarmed Man Resigns
The San Francisco Chronicle reports. This gets Johannes Mehserle off the hook for having to actually cooperate in internal police investigations of his murder of Oscar Grant. A great detail:
Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff said he plans to move quickly toward a decision on possible charges. Orloff met Wednesday with Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums' chief of staff, several elected officials and other community leaders who arrived at his Oakland office demanding information about the probe.
"These things normally take weeks rather than days, but I am trying to expedite this and get it resolved as quickly as we can," Orloff said.
Any people in public prosecutors offices out there? Does it really take weeks to even decide to press charges in your average case of a multiple-eyewitness and on-video shooting? Or could it be officers are treated with kid gloves an average citizen shooter would not be.
Note: An earlier version of this post made the presumption, which I now believe not to be accurate, that the "statewide fund for police officers" that Mehserle's lawyer says in the story will pay for his defense–despite no longer being an officer–was paid for by taxpayers. While I have not been able to verify this for sure this Friday evening, it could well be this private defense fund. If I learn that taxpayers are indeed on the hook, I'll update.
Earlier blogging on this, each one with embeds or links to the news report with the citizen-shot video of the leadup to the shooting and shooting, from Michael Moynihan and me.